


Keep On Goin'

by rubyelf



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 02:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10732512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyelf/pseuds/rubyelf
Summary: The Train will come. It always does.





	Keep On Goin'

TITLE: KEEP ON GOIN'  
AUTHOR: rubyelf  
PROMPT: "Ain't no rest for the wicked"  
WORD COUNT: 525  
SUMMARY: You keep going. Because that's what you do.  
WARNINGS: None

 

The man at the feed mill throws bales of straw and bags of birdseed in the back of pickup trucks. His dirty black knitted cap is pulled down over his ears to protect them from the chill, but he seems to be relying on his scruffy, untended facial hair to shelter the rest of his face. As he works, he finds the bales and tosses them without looking at them, eyes focused on something beyond the trucks, beyond the feed mill. They are clouded eyes, a white mist drifting across the cornea, and the lines in his skin are deeply carved, but he lifts the fifty-pound bags of seed, turns, and throws them without a hint of stiffness or fatigue. The drivers of the pickup trucks give him a nod and wave out the window with a gloved hand as they drive away.

"Earl, you want some coffee?" someone calls, from inside the store.

The man shakes his head and returns to his usual spot, setting on a bale of straw on the edge of the loading platform, where the wind stirs his beard and leaves white flakes of ice strewn over his hat, his shoulders, his knees. Nobody asks him if he wants to come inside, out of the cold. He never does.

The sun is low over the naked skeletons of trees and the ragged frozen edges of the river when the feed mill closes its doors. The man walks down the slope, follows the river, his feet crunching over the hard edges of the footprints he left days before, when the sun was shining and the mud was soft. He leaves no footprints now; the snow is too dry to rest and it lifts and floats on every breath of wind, scattering over the ground. The tops of the feed mill's silos are still in sight as he comes to the bridge, the rusty metal bridge with cold brown water rushing beneath it. His feet find the railroad tracks, tracing the iron rails with his boots as he crosses the bridge and keeps walking.

There was a building at this spot, once. The remnants, some stones, some old posts, still lurk among the dry leaves and debris deposited by the spring floods. The man sits down on a log that the river wedged there sideways during one of its overflows. The sun dips below the horizon.

The train makes no sound, and the rust on the rails is undisturbed. The bright light illuminates nothing in the darkness except the man's expressionless face.

The train is moving slowly. Its conductor is in no hurry. It slows to a stop in front of the man sitting on the log. Behind the engine there are endless boxcars stretching into the hazy distance. The engine glows red in its belly with a fire that never goes out.

"Always on time, aren't you, Earl?" the conductor says, grinning down at him with hot coals for eyes.

"Wouldn't wanna lose my work pass, sir," the man says, and turns toward the boxcar with the open door.

"Good," the conductor says, grinning.

The train rolls on, silent, and disappears.


End file.
